Is your contractor income pre-filled? Check before you lodge

For the first time, the ATO is copying contractor income that clients report about you straight into your tax return. About $21 billion in payments to contractors is now pre-filled for roughly 700,000 sole traders and individuals in business. It saves typing, but you still need to check the figures before you lodge.

What has changed

Businesses that pay contractors for certain services have to tell the ATO about those payments each year in a Taxable payments annual report, or TPAR. Most of these reports are due by 28 August.

From tax time 2026, the ATO takes that information and pre-fills it into the contractor's own tax return. It goes into the business income labels with GST already taken out. Until now you had to add up and type in this income yourself, even though the ATO already had a copy.

Who this applies to

This affects you if you're a sole trader or contractor who provides any of these services:

• building and construction
• cleaning
• courier and road freight
• information technology
• security, investigation or surveillance

The ATO says this also reaches many gig economy workers, such as food delivery riders. If you're in one of these areas and lodge before the TPAR data arrives, your pre-fill may be incomplete. Most payers report by 28 August, so if you haven't lodged yet, most of the data should now be there.

The rules to know before you lodge

Pre-fill only shows what your payers reported. It doesn't show cash jobs, work for private customers who don't lodge a TPAR, or income from other kinds of work. You still have to include all of that.

Pre-fill shows what your clients reported, not everything you earned. Your return still has to include every dollar.

You can check, change and confirm any pre-filled amount. If you change one, you'll be asked to pick a short reason code explaining why. Keep the records that support your figure, such as invoices and bank statements, in case the ATO asks.

Timing can also cause a mismatch. Payers report in TPAR when they pay you, which is a cash basis. If you report your business income when you invoice, which is an accruals basis, some income may fall in a different year. In that case, choose the Other reason code and type "Accruals" in the text box.

Keep in mind that the ATO uses the same data to find income that's missing from tax returns. If your return shows less than your clients reported and there's no reason code to explain it, the ATO may follow up.

Common mistakes to avoid

These are the problems most likely to cause trouble:

• Accepting the pre-filled amount without comparing it to your own invoices.
• Adding your own income total on top of the pre-filled figure, which counts the same income twice.
• Comparing GST-inclusive figures in your books with the GST-exclusive pre-fill.
• Forgetting income that isn't reported through TPAR.
• Lodging in July or early August and never coming back to check what was reported later.

If you've already lodged and find income was left out, you can amend your return yourself or ask your tax agent to do it. Fixing it early is better than waiting for the ATO to find it.

A worked example

Josh is an IT contractor who invoices his clients and reports his income on an accruals basis. His pre-filled business income shows $52,000, all reported by two clients through TPAR.

When he checks his own records, he finds an $8,000 invoice, GST excluded, that he sent on 20 June 2026 and was paid for on 10 July 2026. Under accruals it belongs in 2025-26, but his client reported it in the next year because that's when they paid. Josh changes the pre-filled amount to $60,000, chooses the Other reason code and types "Accruals".

He also did a $2,500 website job for a local shop that doesn't lodge a TPAR, so he includes that income as well. His invoices back up every figure, and his return now matches his books instead of just his clients' reports.

About $21 billion in contractor payments now appears as pre-filled income for 700,000 sole traders.

Key Takeaways